PT Club Jocasta: The Han Solo Adventures

Hey everyone. Starting up a thread for the next book club reading. So this time around I'm changing it up a bit and using my executive powers to chose what we are reading, and I'm picking the Han Solo Adventures, a trilogy of books by Brian Daley. I'm doing this for a few reasons:

1. I thought this would be fun with the Han Solo movie coming up.
2. I want to see how this works doing a trilogy, in case we want to explore doing this again in the future.
3. I'm including the poll for the next book with this post so that people will have longer to vote. I've had a few people ask to keep the polls open longer so I thought keeping it open until the current book is finished would be the best way to do that.


The Han Solo Adventures are three books: Han Solo at Stars' End, Han Solo's Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. They first two were released way back in 1979 with the third coming out in 1980. These were the first EU books for a lot of Star Wars fans, as only Splinter of the Mind's Eye precedes them. Han Solo's Revenge was actually one of the first Star Wars books I read, after Tales from Jabba's Palace and the Thrawn trilogy.

All three books are available in one collection on Amazon (with the cover posted above) and other sellers for a very reasonable price. You can also track down some used copies of each book individually online or probably at usedbook stores. And please don't forget about your local library!!

So, the way I would like to do this is start off with At Star's End and progress through the books in order. If you'd like to participate but not sure you want to read all three books that is fine, but if you don't want to start until the 2nd or 3rd book I will ask you to refrain from commenting until we get to that book. If you start late and we are on the 2nd or 3rd book already but you want to talk about the 1st (or 2nd), go right ahead! I just don't want to spoil anything by discussing the books we haven't gotten to yet. Also, I know a lot of people have already read these books multiple times, so if you fall into this category please join the discussion as well, even if you don't plan on reading them again.

So if you have At Stars' End, go ahead and start reading/discussing. Everyone else track down your copies and get to reading!


I don't think I need to worry about posting decorum rules at this point, just always remember:

 

@heels1785 can you sticky this one and unsticky the Lost Stars thread please?

 

Oh I realized I never tagged anyone.....just pulling these from past threads, sorry if I miss anyone. Tags incoming:

@Darkslayer @BookExogorth @T7-01 @Jedi Knight Fett @Subtext Mining @Tonyg @Talos of Atmora @Darth Kronos @B99 @PadawanGussin

 

@Mr. Forest @BadCane @Blackhole E Snoke @TheAvengerButton @Valency Jane @Darthmaul208 @Darth Nerdling @QueenSabe7 @Deliveranze @Mostly Handless

 

Okay so vote for the next book and let's continue some discussion.

Iron Lord brings up something to look at while reading these stories, and that's comparing Han in these books to how he is portrayed in the movies and in future media. Keep in mind there was only one movie when these were written so it's interesting to see how he ends up comparing to what we get in Empire, Jedi, and even TFA.....not to mention the plethora of canon and Legends material he would later appear in. Just something to think/talk about as we make our way through these books.

 

I know a couple of people have mentioned to me there are going to get to this or will add their thoughts later, but I'm going to go ahead and talk a bit about At Star's End since I'm finished with it. Honestly, I still liked it just as well as I remembered it. It's a story that really feels for the most part like it could fit into the Star Wars universe, which is a little surprising considering when it was written. Han and Chewie are both written pretty close to character, with some slight differences that Iron Lord mentioned before. I liked how much the story shows the close friendship of Han and Chewie. Several times Han is ready to die for his friend and vice versa. The side characters introduced in the story all work pretty well. The Trianni duo become a nice support system in Han's scheme along with the 2 droids; Bollux and Max.

 

You should! I'm got sidetracked a bit but am about 3/4 through Han Solo's Revenge. These older books are great, they fit into the universe just fine for the most part but there is still something about them that you can just tell they were written in the 70's/80s - and I love that.

 

I finished reading this a while ago and never posted my final thoughts - sadly this thread never really took off either - if anyone else ended up reading one or more of these please share your thoughts!

I think Lost Legacy is my favorite of the three - now anyways - I seemed to remember Revenge more so than the other two. I think I liked Legacy better because it's a bit of a treasure hunt, has some fun side characters, and wraps up some threads from the previous books. All three books are still really solid additions to the Legacy books and hold up really well I think. I think the characterization of Han is mostly solid throughout and his relationship with Chewie as well.

Anyways - I'm going to post an announcement about the next book (Leia: Princess of Alderaan) along with another announcement later today. I'm going to keep this thread open for a while longer in case anyone else wants to post their thoughts.

 

Help wanted: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/help-wanted-club-jocasta.50049550/

 

I'm leaving the thread open for a while - so please feel free to pick them up and read all 3 if you want!

 

I had forgotten going into these books that the Corporate Sector were the "villains" kind of throughout instead of just the Empire. If they had been written at a later time I wonder how that might have changed...but they served their purpose in the stories as sufficiently corrupt while not all totally evil.

You're also right about the female characters and serving mostly as love interests - definitely weaker parts of the books but not really surprising given when they were written.

Also I'm glad I re-read this before Solo came out - I wouldn't have caught as many of the little nods in the film without doing so!